The Coldplay Thing.
Lost? (Acoustic) - Coldplay Video Contest - Justin Alt and Erin Gould
This will count as my bi-yearly self-promote-athon. And I won't feel guilty, 'cause no one will read this except Mom.
Every now and then I find myself involved in a creative endeavor that gives me a kick in the short-pants of life, making me remember why I ever got into a creative profession in the first place.
My creative partner-in-crime, Erin Gould, came up with an idea to shoot a music video for a competition hosted by Coldplay featuring their song 'Lost?'. I'd never imagined I would ever take the time to produce anything centered on a Coldplay song; definitely KEANE, but never Coldplay! I'm really a fair weather listener of the band and only recently put them on my iPhone after Erin raved (wouldn't shut up) about them. As usual, he was right, Coldplay is great (X & Y being my favorite).
We got together on a Sunday, after I flaked out of a Saturday meet-up, and we shot scenes we had discussed with his dashing two-year-old son, Edison, as the hero, and his French Bulldog, Bean, as the doggie-in-distress. A seemingly simple video project that featured, you know, a child AND a dog. Thank God for Edison's mom Jill, who had just enough patience and lollipops to keep the young thespian interested long enough for us to capture him on tape for almost an hour. We kept Bean in his trailer until it was his time to shine. And shine he did: sprinting, sniffing out treats, chasing the neighborhood cat. He is very photogenic (all angles). We had what we needed. Also, I shot in the lower rez anamorphic 16x9 aspect ratio setting on the old Digital8 Sony camcorder to get more cinematic-looking framed shots.
I edited the footage to the song 'Lost?' that was offered up for the music video contest and decided that since Edison didn't have any lines (he's an improv kind of guy), I would speed the scenes up a bit, age the clips, and creatle title cards to give it a silent film style. To me, this gives it instant sentimentality, like a piece of film that's been around forever, and not shot with an outdated handheld video camera. At this point, the video seemed to meld together with the emotional feel of the song, and it was time to send our effort to YouTube to be judged.
That was on November 3. It's now the 9th. Last I checked, we had over 61,500 views, 189 comments, and an average rating of 4.5 stars! Our video is the featured video on the Coldplay TV YouTube page, and is also featured on Coldplay.com in the news section.
We've gotten responses from many people who were driven to tears from watching our video, and to those people: I never meant to make you cry! I read one post where someone went to iTunes and actually bought the song after seeing our video. I hope Chris Martin reads that comment!
I did mention this was a contest, right? The winner(s) will receive an all-expenses paid trip to London to see Coldplay perform at O2, and meet the band. My hope is that Chris will show this video to his wife Gwyneth, and she will cast the deciding vote. Of course it would be just plain silly to get my hopes up, but things are looking pretty good for us right now. I will keep you posted, Mom. We should know early December.
This has been such an amazing and inspiring few days for Erin and his family and myself, both personally and creatively. Thanks to all of our 61,153 (and counting) friends for the support and kind words regarding our little video.
Justin had fun writing this at 12:23 AM
12 comments
This will count as my bi-yearly self-promote-athon. And I won't feel guilty, 'cause no one will read this except Mom.Every now and then I find myself involved in a creative endeavor that gives me a kick in the short-pants of life, making me remember why I ever got into a creative profession in the first place.
My creative partner-in-crime, Erin Gould, came up with an idea to shoot a music video for a competition hosted by Coldplay featuring their song 'Lost?'. I'd never imagined I would ever take the time to produce anything centered on a Coldplay song; definitely KEANE, but never Coldplay! I'm really a fair weather listener of the band and only recently put them on my iPhone after Erin raved (wouldn't shut up) about them. As usual, he was right, Coldplay is great (X & Y being my favorite).
We got together on a Sunday, after I flaked out of a Saturday meet-up, and we shot scenes we had discussed with his dashing two-year-old son, Edison, as the hero, and his French Bulldog, Bean, as the doggie-in-distress. A seemingly simple video project that featured, you know, a child AND a dog. Thank God for Edison's mom Jill, who had just enough patience and lollipops to keep the young thespian interested long enough for us to capture him on tape for almost an hour. We kept Bean in his trailer until it was his time to shine. And shine he did: sprinting, sniffing out treats, chasing the neighborhood cat. He is very photogenic (all angles). We had what we needed. Also, I shot in the lower rez anamorphic 16x9 aspect ratio setting on the old Digital8 Sony camcorder to get more cinematic-looking framed shots.
I edited the footage to the song 'Lost?' that was offered up for the music video contest and decided that since Edison didn't have any lines (he's an improv kind of guy), I would speed the scenes up a bit, age the clips, and creatle title cards to give it a silent film style. To me, this gives it instant sentimentality, like a piece of film that's been around forever, and not shot with an outdated handheld video camera. At this point, the video seemed to meld together with the emotional feel of the song, and it was time to send our effort to YouTube to be judged.
That was on November 3. It's now the 9th. Last I checked, we had over 61,500 views, 189 comments, and an average rating of 4.5 stars! Our video is the featured video on the Coldplay TV YouTube page, and is also featured on Coldplay.com in the news section. We've gotten responses from many people who were driven to tears from watching our video, and to those people: I never meant to make you cry! I read one post where someone went to iTunes and actually bought the song after seeing our video. I hope Chris Martin reads that comment!
I did mention this was a contest, right? The winner(s) will receive an all-expenses paid trip to London to see Coldplay perform at O2, and meet the band. My hope is that Chris will show this video to his wife Gwyneth, and she will cast the deciding vote. Of course it would be just plain silly to get my hopes up, but things are looking pretty good for us right now. I will keep you posted, Mom. We should know early December.
This has been such an amazing and inspiring few days for Erin and his family and myself, both personally and creatively. Thanks to all of our 61,153 (and counting) friends for the support and kind words regarding our little video.
Lost? (Acoustic) - Coldplay Video Contest - Justin Alt and Erin Gould
